Attention: E-mail Marketing Increases Profits for Bookkeepers
Three Steps to Make E-mail Work for Your Bookkeeping Practice
Banner ads are not as effective as e-mail. “Internet users are visually discounting the presence of banner ads,” according to Paul Baudisch, president of NetMarque (a marketing agency based in Needham, Massachusetts). In other words, they aren’t looking at them.Click-through rates (the number of people who actually click on the ad to see what it is selling) are going down too. In a recent survey, people who claimed that they never look at banner ads anymore rose from 38% to 48% in one year.
E-mail is Effective
More and more marketers on the Web are turning to the direct marketing model, sending personalized e-mails to highly targeted lists of prospects. Just like the personal sales letter, personal e-mails are changing the way people market on the Web.There are three steps to making your e-mail marketing campaign very effective. And there is good news. An effectively run e-mail marketing campaign can be accomplished for a fraction of the cost of direct mail. Let’s take a look at what it takes to save money by contacting your clients and potential clients via e-mail and how that will generate additional income for your bookkeeping business.
Three Steps to Effective E-mail
- Send the Right Message- For many e-mail marketers, it make sense to soften the sales pitch sent via e-mail. Make your content more informational, with a softer sales message. Many companies find that a newsletter is a very effective tool to reach out to clients and potential clients. By offering valuable information via a free service, (your e-mail newsletter), you can build confidence with your clients and create a natural venue for offering your services.Many marketers find that coupons and promotions sent by e-mail are very effective. These kind of e-mails are usually very well-received. “Nearly one third of respondents to a DoubleClick consumer e-mail study said they’d made an immediate online purchase as a result of receiving an e-mail, and close to one-third said they’d clicked on messages for information and later made an online purchase as a result,” according to Kim T. Gordon, the marketing coach at Entrepreneur.com.
- Look and Act Like a Pro- The two most important elements that contribute to the “open rate”, (how many people actually open your e-mail), are the “from” and “subject” line. Make it very clear who the e-mail is coming from. Your clients will know if it’s coming from you, a valuable source of information, or not. If they don’t know who it’s coming from, it will more than likely not get opened.In your subject line, make sure that at the very least it will give them an idea of what the e-mail will tell them about. Better still, make your subject line read like an interesting headline that will pull them into the body of the e-mail. If you don’t make it interesting enough to open, nobody reads it.Make sure to comply with all CAN SPAM regulations by including your company’s name and physical address in the body of the message as well as an unsubscribe option at the bottom.Designing your e-mail doesn’t have to be difficult. You don’t have to go it alone. In fact, if you’re sending out more than 50 e-mails at a time, you should look at some of the marketing services that cater to small businesses. Topica, 1Shopping Cart and Constant Contact to name a few. Many of these companies will allow you to e-mail up to 5,000 names for under $50 per month. The service will maintain and clean your list by removing invalid e-mail addresses of people who choose to unsubscribe.Choose an e-mail marketing service that provides design templates for e-newsletters, promotional offers and coupons that are easy to customize. Since only 56% of people online have broadband, it’s essential to design full-color, high impact HTML content or promotions, but still give recipients the option of receiving a text-only version.Best of all, most of these services will provide you with the tracking information that helps you determine just how effective you e-mail is. You’ll be able to see how many people open and click on links in your e-mails and track the sales and inquiries that come from them.
- Build a Better List- If you already have a Web site, you’re part of the way there. By putting a sign-up button or screen on your site, you can collect your own names for mailing. “When companies use their own homegrown lists, online direct marketing works even better,” says Robert W. Bly, author and Internet expert. This advice is consistent with my experience too.Sure, you can rent e-mail addresses, but most e-mail servers treat those names as spam, (the Internet version of junk-mail), and they normally don’t get read. In fact, depending on where you got the list of names and who sends them out, it might not accept your e-mail at all. A homegrown list is the best list.To help you get the names for your list, offer a promotion of some kind. As a bookkeeper, you might want to offer a book or some other premium to your clients for giving you their personal information.If you don’t have a Web site, you can still market via e-mail. You still need to collect names and e-mail addresses to reach out to your current and potential clients. Anytime you get any interest in your service, make sure and collect the name, address and e-mail address. You might even consider a direct mail campaign to get folks e-mail addresses. Make sure and give them a reason (a premium) to sign up with an e-mail address, and you’ll be well on your way to building a powerful list.But remember, most people who will respond to your e-mail will expect that you have some kind Web presence. As part of Universal Accounting’s Professional Bookkeeper Program, you’ll have a customizable Web site to get you started with your Web marketing efforts.
Will My E-mail Marketing Really Get Read?
You’re reading this, aren’t you? If you provide the right information to the right people, yes… it will get read. If done properly, e-mail is a very effective tool for marketing to your clients and potential clients. The Professional Bookkeeper Program is full of valuable insight into how to spread your sales and marketing message the most effective way possible.Learning about the ins-and-outs of small business bookkeeping and accounting is only part of creating a professional bookkeeping business. Your education should also give you the tools you need to build and grow your business too. The Professional Bookkeeper Program is the only program I’m aware of that provides that type of instruction. Click on the link below and find out for yourself how you can create the income and lifestyle that you and your family deserve.Click Here to Learn How to Pay Yourself What You’re Worth and Build the Lifestyle You Deserve
